Tracy Cilona is an instantly likeable Jersey girl, but there’s no Snooki bump on this Garden State native—you’re more likely to find a handmade headdress featuring a real sparrow’s skull, or a sculptural hat from an up-and-coming haberdasher. Cilona is the new owner of West Seattle’s Twilight Gallery, a space she took over from the Twilight Art Collective in January. Her next exhibition, Dolls of the Psycho Pomp Cirque, is on view through the month of October and features creepy delights like reversible, topsy-turvy fabric dolls, delicate porcelain interpretations of Mexican sugar skulls and Jazz-inspired skeletons stuffed with glitter and Louisiana rice. We chatted with the beyond-friendly Cilona about art and feminism, her passion for emerging artists, and finding her voice as a curator.
What inspired you to open a gallery?
I wanted to start a bar and gallery, something like the old Gray Gallery on Capitol Hill. The Twilight Art Collective became available and I thought it was a great, established space and a good place to start. I had been curating in Seattle for years, and collaborating with the artist duo DameBuilder. A lot of the things we did were based on a bell hooks essay—we were inspired by the ‘70s feminist art movement where women artists created their own concepts for shows and put them on. We did quarterly shows all over the city, lots of pop-ups, but I wanted a place to create an identity. West Seattle is my town.
Twilight is getting a reputation as a hot spot for literary events. Can you tell me about some of the things you’ve been hosting?
I keep the space vibrant and open with events. There’s the bar downstairs, there’s Easy Street Records next door. Lots of writers and performance artists are attracted to this space, so I saw an opportunity to feature writers from this part of town. That hadn’t really been happening—we had the only West Seattle reading and signing of Nicole Hardy’s Confessions of a Latter Day Virgin, even though this is her neighborhood. We do a bimonthly spoken word event called Aperture Stop, where writers respond to art pieces. They look at five pieces of art, from the gallery and from out in the world. They come and do readings for a couple of hours—it’s a great, BYOB, casual night.
You give a lot of budding artists their first solo shows. What drives you to get newbies on their feet?
My background is in academia; I spent ten years as a college adjunct professor. Mentoring students from being beginners to creating their final portfolio, creating their look, creating their art, creating an artist’s statement—that feels natural to me, to elevate a person or guide them in their career. I want to get people to that next level, to polish and present themselves as professional artists and nurture them through that process.
I organize the gallery to help people get fully educated in the art that they want to buy and the person making it. I love salon style, I would just have floor to ceiling art in here and hookahs and rugs and couches and people coming in and drinking wine in my salon, if that were conducive to selling artwork.
How do you choose art?
I adore concept, I love conceptual art, I love heady art, and political art or anything like that. I also love pretty art without an agenda. But there needs to be a strong artist’s statement or a concept behind it—that’s the only way they’ll be able to sell it or talk to other people about it.
I’ve been getting a different caliber of submissions based on the way the gallery’s changed. Next year it will be all group shows and collaborative shows that have the potential to turn into installations. That’s what’s so great about my life and Seattle, because that’s the way things always happen. I’m a connector and people connect back to me, and that’s been working so well for the gallery.
You’ve supported a lot of strong female artists. How does feminism tie into your vision?
I view the world from my feminism. I’m drawn and interested and attracted to women making art and treating the subject matter that’s also been my education and my history. It inspires me to be who I am, to surround myself with the people that I do. It’s not all women that I show, and it’s not all feminist art that I show, but I have been fortunate to amass this amazing friendship collection of so many talented women that live in Seattle. So I don’t have pictures of giant bloody vaginas in here but if somebody wanted to show that here and there was an important reason why, I’d do it.
There’s also a boutique aspect of Twilight. How does that fit with the gallery?
I’m really interested in wearable art and fine art jewelry, handmade local, national and international objects. I also love handmade gifts and crafts and how that’s been elevated, because we need to reeducate the population. It’s been maybe 30 or 40 years since things were more handmade. I’m interested in valuing that and having people price their pieces accordingly. A lot of fine artists make wearable art as well, and a lot of people represented in the shop are also in the back gallery. It’s what draws people, handmade gifts and jewelry, so that’s going to be a large part of Twilight. It keeps the commerce coming in.
How do you see Twilight Gallery fitting in with the rest of the Seattle art scene?
What’s great about Seattle is that every business, every artist, every person, gets an opportunity. I feel like I can ask for anyone’s help. I can ask anyone’s opinion. It’s a really great town for emerging. That would be me as an emerging curator and shop owner and all the other stuff, but we’ll always be supporting the emerging artist that’s transitioning into a professional.